More and more we are see­ing a trend of peo­ple shy­ing away from gluten which is com­mon­ly found in foods con­tain­ing wheat flour and some oth­er sources. Gluten is found in most of your favourite pas­tries, pas­ta and even in beer. One can ar­gue that gluten is prac­ti­cal­ly in every­thing but, that’s not re­al­ly the case. With this preva­lent change in at­ti­tude, we are al­so see­ing ex­pan­sive gluten-free al­ter­na­tives on the mar­ket.

Be­fore I go any fur­ther, let it be known that I am not a di­etit­ian and that you should see a reg­is­tered di­etary pro­fes­sion­al should you need coun­sel on whether you have a need to re­move gluten from your di­et or not.

Wait, what’s gluten?

Gluten this, gluten that but wait, what ex­act­ly is gluten? Gluten is a fam­i­ly of pro­teins found in grains or ce­re­als like wheat, spelt, rye, bar­ley and oth­ers. They con­sist of two com­pounds, gliadin, a sol­u­ble pro­tein and glutenin, an in­sol­u­ble pro­tein. The culi­nary func­tions of gluten pro­teins are for wa­ter ab­sorp­tion ca­pac­i­ty, vis­cos­i­ty and elas­tic­i­ty of doughs. Gluten pro­teins are al­so re­spon­si­ble for the struc­ture of doughs for baked goods.

Those who suf­fer from celi­ac dis­ease which is an au­toim­mune con­di­tion that is trig­gered by gluten, have a se­ri­ous health-re­lat­ed rea­son to jus­ti­fy their ab­sti­nence from di­ets con­tain­ing gluten. An­oth­er health-re­lat­ed rea­son for a self-im­posed ‘gluten ban’ is in­flam­ma­tion which is said to be caused by pro­teins found in wheat. There are al­so oth­ers who be­lieve that main­tain­ing a di­et that is gluten-free would im­prove men­tal and phys­i­cal health how­ev­er, there are ar­gu­ments on both sides of that fence. My ad­vice is again, to con­sult a reg­is­tered di­etit­ian.

There are now many gluten-free op­tions avail­able on the mar­ket. We can now find every­thing gluten-free; from wine, beer or pas­ta, to sauces, pan­cakes and even bread that is some­times of high­er qual­i­ty and more palat­able than their gluten coun­ter­parts. Amaz­ing right?

So on the top­ic of bread, the usu­al main in­gre­di­ent would be bak­er’s flour, or more com­mon­ly, all-pur­pose flour. How does one go about mak­ing bread with­out the main in­gre­di­ent? Well, the an­swer is to sub­sti­tute the main in­gre­di­ent for one of the many al­ter­na­tive flours. It is im­por­tant to note that the var­i­ous types of flour may not have the same at­trib­ut­es of wheat flour and there­fore, must be ma­nip­u­lat­ed to achieve the de­sired out­come. We will tack­le a few of the op­tions that are read­i­ly ac­ces­si­ble.

Split Pea Flour

Split pea flour is very pop­u­lar in our coun­try. We may be most fa­mil­iar with it in the form of pholourie mix; its mild­ly nut­ty flavour and abil­i­ty to car­ry oth­er flavours well makes it a very good op­tion for var­i­ous pur­pos­es. Split pea flour is well-suit­ed to mak­ing frit­ters, pan­cakes and even cakes. Be­ing that yel­low split peas do not bind in the same way wheat flour does, oth­er in­gre­di­ents are need­ed to al­low an item made with yel­low split pea flour to hold; they in­clude pota­to starch, rice flour and tapi­o­ca or dasheen starch.

Chick­pea Flour

Chick­pea flour is an­oth­er great op­tion if you need to swap out all-pur­pose flour. Sim­i­lar­ly, oth­er starch­es like pota­to, buck­wheat and rice flours are need­ed to help hold the struc­ture of baked dough items. Ground flaxseeds and lin­seeds act as a bind­ing agent and take the func­tion of gluten pro­teins found in wheat flour.

Al­mond Flour

Al­mond flour, made from dried, ground al­monds is yet, an­oth­er pop­u­lar op­tion as it per­tains to al­ter­na­tive flours. I love the nut­ty flavour of al­mond flour and how close it comes to the re­al thing. The main draw­back of al­mond flour is the cost as com­pared to reg­u­lar flour. Al­mond flour al­so needs a bind­ing agent such as ground flaxseeds or xan­than gum. Al­mond flour is very ver­sa­tile and is well-suit­ed to mak­ing bread, quick breads, cook­ies and cake bat­ters.

Aside from these, there are op­tions unique to our re­gion such as bread­fruit, cas­sa­va, green fig and even co­conut flours. The trick is learn­ing which qual­i­ties they car­ry and fig­ur­ing out what pur­pos­es they are suit­ed for. It would take some ex­per­i­men­ta­tion in some cas­es but that’s the fun part; not to men­tion you get to eat all the ‘fail­ures’. Whether that’s a good or a bad thing de­pends on how good or bad you are in the bakeshop, but as the time­less say­ing goes, ‘What doesn’t kill will fat­ten’.